The effect of fMRI (noise) on cognitive control

Stressful situations, the aversiveness of events, or increases in task difficulty (e.g., conflict) have repeatedly been shown to be capable of triggering attentional control adjustments. In the present study we tested whether the particularity of an fMRI testing environment (i.e., EPI noise) might result in such increases of the cognitive control exerted. We found that participants were more effective in controlling episodic retrieval of previous stimulus-response bindings (Experiment 1), in switching to a new task (Experiment 2), and shielding a current goal from distracting response tendencies (Experiment 3) if they were exposed to challenging task situations, such as 70 dB echo planar imaging noise sampled from an fMRI scanner. These findings have considerable theoretical implications in questioning the widespread assumption that people are equally devoted to easy and more challenging tasks, and methodological implications in raising the possibility that experiments carried out in fMRI scanners or under otherwise challenging conditions systematically overestimate contributions from cognitive control processes.     

Acceptance as a Positive Attitude

Abstract

We argue in favor of the adaptive value of acceptance and that it deserves a definite status within the ‘positive paradigm’. Acceptance currently suffers from ambiguous connotations because of its lack of optimistic biases and its similarity to resignation. We endeavor to show that acceptance and resignation are distinct attitudes by exploring their relationships with various phenomena–frustration, disappointment, expectation, positive thinking, replanning, and accuracy. The resulting distinguishing features of acceptance–thriving versus returning to baseline; realistic optimism versus hopelessness; persistence and flexible replanning versus disengagement–are crucial for adaptive coping, and appear to be in keeping with the positive paradigm.     

The richness of ordinary life: Religious justification among Chile's business elite

Based on the analysis of 75 in-depth interviews with managers and businessmen of Chile's main economic conglomerates, this article is concerned with the justification, on religious and moral grounds, of the establishment of a neo-liberal economic model during Augusto Pinochet's regime (1973-1989) and, most importantly, with the representation of business as a religious vocation. The value granted to wealth creation as a path to salvation, as formulated by the conservative religious movements Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ, is one possible response to the Church's call in Vatican II for the greater involvement of the laity in their cultures and societies. In the context of an increase in pluralism during the 1960s and 1970s, the perceived shift of the Catholic Church to the Left, and the threat that the political project of Salvador Allende's socialist government (1970-1973) posed to the elite's centenary lifestyle, the practice of more conservative forms of Catholicism has allowed for a restoration of the historical bond between the elite and its religious tradition. The case of Chile's elite can be seen as an example of an increase in pluralism which does not lead to a weakening of religious belief and practice, but to their strengthening.     

Body pedagogics and the religious habitus: A new direction for the sociological study of religion

Sociological theory has been central to the modern study of religion. In the face of the global resurgence of religious phenomena, however, and the challenge this has presented for the assumptions that characterised much twentieth century sociology, there is a need for new theoretical models to make sense of religion today. This paper contributes to this task by building upon Durkheim's suggestion that religious social facts become fully efficacious only when internalised, and Luhmann's interest in sociological manifestations of ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence’, in order to analyse religion as a thoroughly embodied phenomenon that can be understood through the study of religious body pedagogics. Having outlined the key steps involved in the analysis of body pedagogics, we illustrate the utility of this realist framework through an ideal-typical representation of Christianity and Islam and reflect, via a consideration of several objections that could be directed towards it, upon how this approach can deal with the complexities and contingencies of contemporary religion. In conclusion, it is suggested that this systematic body pedagogic focus on embodied commonalities and differences across diverse religious contexts offers a valuable basis upon which to engage critically with religion today.     

The panoptic gaze in a non-western setting: self-surveillance on Merapi volcano, Central Java

Jeremy Bentham's late eighteenth century concept of the ‘panopticon’, popularized by Foucault two centuries later, has become a ubiquitous model for thinking about not merely surveillance but self-surveillance in the modern state. Foucault's analysis of the panopticon, and indeed perhaps the panopticon itself, is tied to a particular time and place of state development. What are the implications for this scholarship of different, non-western traditions of state surveillance? An effort is made to answer this questions drawing on a body of beliefs about volcanic hazard from the Sultanate of Yogyakarta in Central Java. It is believed that there is a spirit world inside the crater of Merapi volcano that mirrors the world of humans. By monitoring the volcano, it is thought that insight can be gained into what is happening in the everyday world. These beliefs thus represent a model for monitoring, for surveillance, for self-surveillance. The ways that this both resembles and differs from Bentham's and Foucault's model of the panopticon offers new insights into the cultural and historical dimensions of our current understandings of the state gaze. This analysis will also offer new insights into the applicability of Foucault's work on surveillance and governance in non-western contexts.     

Remembering our violent conversion: Conflict in the Icelandic conversion narrative

This article analyzes violent conflict in the medieval narratives of Iceland's conversion to Christianity, as told by the Icelanders themselves. The article considers physical and verbal aggression as interrelated forms of conflict connected in an economy of violent exchange. In the narratives, they are represented as attacks against material and symbolic resources. The competing pagans and Christians struggle to come out ahead as often as they can and thereby win the most converts. Verbal violence takes center stage in this analysis, more specifically three kinds of verbal violence: a particular sub-genre of insults; coercive speech; and speech as a means of supernatural power. The first of these, the insults use deeply embedded medieval Icelandic constructions of gender to create a highly corrosive discourse that combines cowardice, homosexuality and laziness, among other things, as the traits of the least desirable sort of man. Finally, in contrast the commonplace occurrence of violent conflict in these texts, an internal critique of violence appears in the later versions of the conversion story. This critique reconsiders what forms of violence are legitimate, most significantly disapproving of the previously accepted masculine activity of revenge.     

Church Attendance and Religious Change in Italy, 1968–2010: A Multilevel Analysis of Pooled Datasets

The debate over religious change in Italy is far from having reached unanimous conclusions: some scholars point to an unbroken trend toward a decrease of religiosity, while others highlight the signs of a religious revival, especially in younger generations. Besides difficulties with definitions, different conclusions are also due to a lack of information over a sufficiently long period of time. This problem is tackled here by developing a pooled analysis of repeated cross‐section surveys that span over four decades. Using six different studies, the article analyzes the secularization trend in Italy on the basis of church attendance that, despite well‐founded criticism, continues to be a crucial indicator of this phenomenon. The results, estimated using multilevel models, show that the trend of attendance at Mass in Italy has decreased since the 1960s until today, despite a period of stability at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The overall trend looks like a “recumbent S” trend (decrease up to the 1970s, stability in the 1980s, decrease afterwards). Thus, the claims of a religious revival in Italy are not supported by our results.     

Hinduism and cyberspace

Hinduism is thriving in cyberspace. In this article I consider the suitability of this environment for Hinduism. This can indicate both whether various forms of Hindu religious expression online are valid and whether Hinduism needs to undergo any radical changes as a result of its presence in cyberspace. In order to investigate this issue I consider the nature of cyberspace and then discuss a number of key aspects of Hinduism in the light of this. I conclude that, overall, cyberspace appears to be a highly suitable environment for Hinduism.     

Alien demonology: the Christian roots of the malevolent extraterrestrial in UFO religions and abduction spiritualities

Initially, the sacralisation of the extraterrestrial led to an understanding of the alien as a fundamentally benevolent, messianic figure—a ‘technological angel’. This was largely because of the Cold War environment in which much UFO religion arose. Those attracted to the myth looked beyond a politically and militarily unstable planet to extraterrestrial saviours. Furthermore, because UFO religions have their roots in the Theosophical tradition, the religious understanding of the extraterrestrial tended to be fundamentally indebted to the concept of the wise and benevolent ascended master. The aim of this article is to examine the technological angel's foil. The central thesis is that, in their construction of the malevolent alien, UFO religionists and abductees turn not to Theosophy and Eastern religious traditions but to the myths and symbols of Christian demonology. Moreover, in exploring the origins and nature of the demonologies of contemporary UFO religions and abduction spiritualities, the article also draws attention to the importance of popular culture in the West, which, itself influenced by the Christian tradition, contributes to the formation of both popular demonology and also UFO mythology, which are in turn synthesised in UFO demonologies.